With Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone hitting movie theaters this weekend, millions of fans who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind or visually impaired will be able to watch the first-run blockbuster debut on the big screen.
That's a drastic change from just years ago, when many deaf and blind movie fans had to wait months for a film to be released in theaters that were equipped for them.
"I didn't want to wait once a year to see a movie," said Nancie Link-Ellis, who is deaf. "I wanted to go when everybody else does."
The Potter film will play with both closed captions and narration available, for the entire run of the film, in select theaters equipped with Rear Window Captioning and DVS Theatrical systems.
The film will also be released for open-captioned screenings in select cities.
"With Titanic, we first got a taste of captioned films," said Nancie Link-Ellis, executive director for Tripod Captioned Films. "Harry Potter has gone way beyond that."
The film will no doubt be eagerly anticipated by those who are blind or visually impaired and have already read the Braille versions of the books, which were released simultaneously with each new Potter book.
"Descriptions make the magic of this film come alive," said Mary Watkins, outreach manager of Media Access at WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media. "J.K. Rowling did not want illustrations in the books, which led every reader to conjure Harry, Hogwarts and the rest of the story in their own minds. Descriptions for this film equal the playing field for kids and adults with vision loss."
The film may also prompt a new generation of children to read the books.
"This is a film that is going to encourage deaf or hard-of-hearing kids to read," Linke-Ellis said.
Warner Brothers Pictures is working with public broadcaster WGBH's Media Access Group to distribute the films with closed captions and descriptive narration.
Rear Window and DVS Theatrical systems are currently installed in theaters in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York City, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Clifton, New Jersey and Springfield, Virginia.
Nineteen of the 21 currently equipped theaters will play the movie. Canada's largest theater chain will also install five of these systems to coincide with the film's debut.
But there are only 70 specialty movie theaters in the United States that currently have closed captioning. That's only a tiny slice of the 3,672 theaters that will show the Potter film nationwide.
DVS Theatrical allows blind and visually-impaired moviegoers to listen to descriptions that are delivered through infrared or FM systems to headsets. Through these headsets, they can hear narrated information about actions, settings, scene changes and special effects that are vital to the Potter film.
The Rear Window Captioning system allows deaf and hearing-impaired patrons to read closed captions without distracting others in the theater who aren't using the device that displays the captions. That eliminates the need for special prints or separate screenings.
Moviegoers who are deaf or hearing impaired can attach acrylic panels to seat cup-holders in order to see reversed captions reflected from a light-emitting diode (LED) text display installed in the back of the theater. The reflective panels are portable and adjustable, so the caption user can sit anywhere in the theater.
"Closed captions stay with the film, so as long as it's playing in an equipped auditorium, each and every show will be accessible," Watkins said. "The patron decides when to go, where to sit, who to bring, and has an independent experience."
However, some hearing-impaired moviegoers find the Rear Window system disorienting.
"Many, many people don't like closed captions because it's just words streaming across," Linke-Ellis said.
Instead, they often prefer open captions: text, similar to subtitles, burned onto film with a laser and then projected onto the screen. All audience members can see the open captions.
"Aesthetically, it's a much more enjoyable way to watch a film," Linke-Ellis said. "The words are right on the screen with no black box blocking the picture. It's much more in the vein of how a filmmaker wants a film to be shown."
With open-captioned films, viewers can read the dialog beneath the person who is speaking on the screen. So a hearing-impaired moviegoer can get a true sense of what's going on in the film.
However, hearing audience members sometimes object to open captions, and so open-captioned films are shown at off times or during the weekdays when it's tough to get to a theater, Watkins said.
Some movie theaters are reluctant to pay to install the systems. The cost of the equipment for providing both Rear Window captions and DVS Theatrical is approximately $11,000.
Studios are also reluctant to foot the bill. It costs approximately $2,000 to caption and $9,000 to describe a two-hour film. Also, theaters want to see more of a steady stream of films being released with closed captions and descriptions.
"Right now, it's a matter of economics," Linke-Ellis said. "It's prohibitive for the theaters."
"When digital comes, all this equipment will be obsolete. The question is who's going to pay for it. Right now, the studios and theatres are coming to terms with who is going to pay for digital."
However, others say that the shift to digital won't make these technologies obsolete. Rear Window captioning and DVS Theatrical are are already in use in an all-digital format at the Loew's complex at CityWalk in Los Angeles.
"The digital argument is moot," Watkins said. "Regardless of the method of film delivery to theaters, captioning for audience members comes down to a display issue, open vs. closed."
While alternative captioning technologies could emerge in the future, advocates stress the need to incorporate these access technologies in theaters today.
"As long as the community argues with each other about open vs. closed (captioning), theaters can justify ignoring the real issue, creating access to theaters now," Watkins said. "When a market for closed captioned films is proven on a wide basis, other options for closed captioning will be introduced to the marketplace. But Rear Window and DVS Theatrical will remain viable."
More information about films that will be released with closed captions and descriptions is available at www.mopix.org. Upcoming Tripod open-caption films are available at www.tripod.org.
